misguided subjects.” The admiral was suspicious, and hesitated. “They have not forgiven us the surprise of Meaux,” he said. “But the desire of all for peace,” observes La Noue, “was as a whirlwind which they could not resist.”[406] Meanwhile the Huguenot army melted away, whole bodies going off without asking leave, and Condé hurriedly signed the Treaty of Longjumeau (20th March, 1568),[407] which restored the Edict of Amboise, bound the court to pay the foreign auxiliaries in the rebel service, and left the Reformed party, says Mezeray, “at the mercy of their enemies, with no other guarantee than the word of an Italian woman.”[408] While the admiral was negotiating the treaty of Longjumeau his wife fell ill and died at Orleans of a fever contracted in the course of her charitable labors in that crowded and unhealthy city. As soon as she felt the approaches of death, she wrote the following pathetic letter to her husband: “I feel very unhappy in dying so far from you, whom I have always loved more than myself; but I take comfort from the knowledge that you are kept away from me by the best of motives. I entreat you, by the love you bear me, and by the children I leave you as pledges of my love, to fight to the last extremity for God’s service and the advancement of religion.... Train up our children in the pure religion, so that if you fail them, they may one day take your place; and as they can not yet spare you, do not expose your life more than is necessary. Beware of the house of Guise; I know not whether I ought to say the same of the queen-mother, being forbidden to judge evilly of my neighbor; but she has given so many marks of her ambition that a little distrust is pardonable.” It was two or three days before the admiral could leave the army, and when he reached Orleans all was over. His wife had been dead twenty-four hours, leaving him with three boys and one girl. For a time the bereaved husband was inconsolable: “Oh, God, what have I done?” he exclaimed, in the anguish of his heart; “what have I done that I should be so severely chastised, so overwhelmed with calamities?” At last the consolations of religion began to temper his sorrow. “Would that I might lead a holier life and present a better example of godliness! Most Holy Father, look upon me, if it please thee, and in the multitude of thy mercies, relieve my sufferings!”[409] As soon as the state of affairs permitted he retired to his estate at Chatillon, but was not long permitted to enjoy the rest and privacy he sought. In a short time he became the centre of a little court. The crowd was so great that, “when two gentlemen left by one door, twenty entered by another.” The admiral was so beloved that he was overwhelmed with presents, the members of his party forcing them upon him notwithstanding his protests. “It is only right,” they urged, “to help the man who is ruining himself for love of us.”